The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine    

About The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

An online clearinghouse for manuscripts treating the humanities and medicine.

Howard Spiro, M.D., Editor
howard.spiro@yale.edu

George A. Trone, Ph.D., Managing Editor and Webmaster
info@yjhm.org

William G. Rector, M.D., Poetry Editor
poetry@yjhm.org

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September 10, 2007

Our journal continues to act as a clearinghouse for manuscripts in the broad area of humanities in medicine. Fired by the poetry and stories that many of you have brought to us , the electronic format remains ideal: cheap and rapid, its space is as limitless as the Atlantic. George Trone at the helm, with his broad literate background keeps us still on an even keel. I thank him once again, for his dedication to this labor of love. So many hard-copy journals, with the very same goals , failed owing to the expense of editing a paper journal, but George has stayed the course!

I am 83, with god’s/nature’s grace, but I hope there is someone out there who would be enthusiastic about taking over my task, whenever—and before. My father always warned me not to try to rule beyond the grave, though my children suspect me of exactly such designs. Get in touch with George Trone or me to learn more.

We continue to welcome words from anyone who hopes to influence and educate “health-care providers;” we hope that their contributions will be reasonably literate and pertinent to the broad field of medicine and medical practice.

Observations from medical students and student nurses are especially welcome. As yet untrammeled by indoctrination and not yet hardened by experience, their observations, prove often as illuminating as the narratives of patients. I would love to see more stories – ‘narrative” now the style is- from patients, because they see us physicians at our worst and, one hopes, sometimes at our best. Descriptions of the patient-physician encounter has been an unfailing source of correction and insight.

Alan Astrow continues to provide much for readers to think about, in the essays he has edited on religion in medicine, broadly described nowadays as “spirituality.” Physicians have been educated to believe that we are scientists skeptical about anything that cannot be tested or measured. But all of us are, in the old phrase, “body, mind, and spirit,” a trinity still too often ignored by doctors to our patient’s sorrow. Psychotropic drugs can cure depression, but they do not banish sorrow. There is much more to say on this topic; continuing dialogues between the clergy and physicians has always been a source of courage, as each generation wrestles with eternal questions.

Copyright continues a murky question, most advisers holding that copyright flows from the “pen.” We claim no copyright on anything published in this journal. You can re-publish it anywhere you want, but we would appreciate a link to this endeavor.

So continue to send along your contributions by e-mail to George Trone at info@yjhm.org with a copy to me at howard.spiro@yale.edu. Poetry submissions should be directed to Bill Rector at poetry@yjhm.org. And send us advice about any new directions we should take. We do plan to publish a few book reviews and maybe even, from time to time, notices of classics that need rereading.

Bless you all.

Howard Spiro